


Forever

by acerbitas



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Creepy non-consensual cuddling, Emotional Abuse, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Physical Abuse, Ramsay being creepy, Stockholm Syndrome, Victim Blaming, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1579073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acerbitas/pseuds/acerbitas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ramsay brings Reek to his chambers, Reek thinks he knows what Ramsay wants.  He's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Head cocked to one side, Reek stared blankly forward.  Ramsay had brought him into his chamber, and Reek knew exactly what that meant.  He also knew not to move, not to speak, until he had Ramsay’s permission.  That was the way of things.

Ramsay paced, his brow furrowed and hands clenched tight by his sides.  “My father doesn’t believe I should succeed him.  That’s what he said to me, Reek.  What do you think about that?”

“I...think that you would be a great leader.”  _Just say what he wants to hear, and maybe he’ll keep his knife to himself._

Gritting his teeth, Ramsay rounded on Reek, his eyes black and hollow.  “You’re just a dog.  What do you know about anything?”

“Nothing, my lord.  I…know nothing.”  He paused, groping for placating words.  “But I am happy to serve you.  Others are too.”

The other man grinned; it was an empty grin, and it spoke of knives and pain.  “Are you really?”

“Yes.”

“Then prove it.”

Reek tried to calm his shaking fingers.  “I shall try, my lord.”

“Down,” Ramsay commanded.

Reek complied, kneeling on the warm floor of Ramsay’s chambers.

“Come.”  Turning away, Ramsay reached for the whip he’d left on the bed.

Shuddering, Reek kept his eyes fixed on his fingerless gloves as he crawled to Ramsay.  After whimpering, and licking Ramsay’s hand on his hands and knees until he shook, Ramsay had gifted him with them.  “You don’t have many fingers anyway,” he’d told him, and laughed.

“Look at me.”

Craning his neck, Reek peered at Ramsay from below.  Ramsay clutched his weapon, the leather coiled around his palm like a snake.

 _I know this game,_ Reek thought.  It didn’t matter if he knew it, though, because Ramsay never played fair.  On Reek’s back, Ramsay had etched his failures, some with a knife, some with a hot iron, and some with a whip.

“Are you happy to be out of your cell, Reek?”

Reek nodded.  When he didn’t have to say anything, he didn’t speak.  The less words he spoke, the less likely he was to make Ramsay angry.

“Show me.”

Crawling towards Ramsay, Reek nuzzled his leg, whining.

“What do you think I want?  A good dog learns to understand his master.”

The floor was gray and marbled, bits of mortar flaking in-between the stone.  Reek got lost in it, examining imperfections nobody had ever noticed before, or would again.  “Would you like to have me, master?”  The floor was more real than Ramsay, more real than the weakness drenching his body.

Ramsay laughed, the rope uncoiling from his fingers and slipping to the floor.  “Sweet Reek, I always want to have you.  I will have you forever.  But that’s not what I was thinking of.  Not now.”

Reek didn’t know what Ramsay wanted.  When Ramsay brought him to his chamber, he wanted to fuck him.  It had never been different.  Sometimes he wanted him to act like a dog first.  Sometimes he wanted to hear him screaming in pain.  Still other times he wanted Reek to beg for something, from food to Ramsay’s cock.  But in the end it was all the same; Ramsay had his way with him.

Reek heard the lash crawling towards him, its quiet rustling more powerful than Ramsay’s boots on the floor.

“Take your shirt off.”

Fingers trembling, Reek pulled of his shirt; when Ramsay had him strip, it felt like he was removing his last bit of dignity.  His clothes were like a child’s blanket.  They didn’t really protect him, but it felt like they did.

“Kneel.”  Ramsay sounded impatient, almost _needy_.

Reek didn’t understand; Ramsay could never be needy.  Reek needed Ramsay, not the other way around.  He complied, and when the first lash tore into his back, he gasped.  The second didn’t hurt as bad.  It almost never did.

“Now, let’s try again.  What do you think I want from you now?”

“…For me to be good, and obey you.”  That was just a game they played.  Ramsay did want him to be obedient, but he wanted him to make mistakes so he could beat him bloody.

Before Ramsay said anything, he brought the whip full force onto Reek’s back.  Blood seeped from a reopened wound, and Reek gritted his teeth.

Ramsay sighed.  “Pet, I always want that.  I know you are dull, but I don’t think you are trying.”  Two more lashes came down, and blood dribbled to the floor.

Reek squeezed his eyes shut, and floated, separating himself from the pain until it became somebody else’s pain, and not his.  “I…do you want me to beg?”

“No.  Take off the rest of your clothes and lean against the wall.”  Ramsay’s voice was getting dangerously soft.  The softer it was, the angrier he became; he inherited that from his father.

Reek did as he was bid, feeling tears prick the corners of his eyes.  Sometimes, Ramsay liked to touch the place where Reek’s manhood had been, examining his handiwork.  Just removing his pants reminded him of that, of all of it.

The next lash fell hard against his legs, and Reek lurched forward as he whimpered in pain.  _This is going to be long,_ he thought, heart beginning to jump.  _I’m never going to guess right._ The second lash fell on his thighs, and Ramsay threw in another one in the same spot.

“I’m beginning to think that you _want_ this.”  Ramsay ran the whip along Reek’s back, chucking.  His good mood had revived; he had gotten into the swing of things.  “You know you deserve it, don’t you?”

“I know,” Reek agreed. He didn’t know much.  He knew his name, the one that Ramsay had given him.

Whenever Ramsay didn’t hurt Reek for a while, Reek started to ache for it.  When the ache had first started, he’d been furious at himself; but that had been when Theon had been bigger, more real.  Now the ache was bigger instead.  Reek’s whole world was Ramsay, and when Ramsay didn’t hurt him, the world slipped out of sync.  _But he only hurts me when I need it,_ he reminded himself.  Reek didn’t know if he really believed that.

 “Try again.”

“To learn obedience.”

“No!” Ramsay snapped.  “You should already know that by now.”  In his fury he struck Reek four times, and Reek felt a sob build up in his throat.  It got out before he could stop it.  He could only block out so much pain.

“Again.”

Another wrong answer.  Two strokes.

 “Again!”

“I…I don’t know.”  Reek was sobbing.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.  Please tell me, so I can serve you.”  The pain was incredible; it gnawed at him until he wanted to scream.  He probably would eventually.

Ramsay snorted.  “You’re even dumber than my other dogs.”

“I know.  I’m sorry.”  It was useless to keep trying.  At least now Ramsay would give him the rest of his punishment without asking him again.  Somewhere deep inside of him, Reek was ashamed that punishment brought him release.  He was filthy and a traitor; he’d murdered children.  And he wasn’t good enough, not even as Ramsay’s dog.

“What do you think your punishment should be?”

“What…whatever you wish.”  Reek hoped Ramsay wasn’t in a flaying mood.

Ramsay tapped the whip against Reek’s back.  “I think this will teach you well enough.”

Reek stared at the wall as another came, and then another.  He was still crying, but he didn’t notice; he didn’t notice anything but the spot in the wall where a stone had partially crumbled.  He was something inhuman, something apart from himself.

The man leaning against the wall began to scream.  Ramsay only stopped when he was about to collapse, and Reek was grateful even for that.  Sometimes his legs did buckle, and that made Ramsay angry.  Reek didn’t think he could cope with Ramsay’s anger now, but then again, somehow he was still alive.  Somehow he’d survived it all.

Ramsay let him slump onto the floor, another small kindness.  Reek leaned his head against wall.  Running his hands along the cracks and bumps in the stone, Reek trembled.  His body shook with pain and tears, and he knew his back would burn like fire for days.

Then his respite was over, and Ramsay told him to get on the bed.  Reek crawled on, getting on his hands and knees as he had done far too many times before.

“No,” Ramsay said.

Reek got on his back and spread his legs.

“No,” Ramsay said again.

Crawling to the edge of the bed, Reek reached for the laces of Ramsay’s britches.

“No.”

Reek’s eyes burned from holding back further tears; he didn’t know what Ramsay wanted.  Ramsay was going to beat him again for this.  Cringing, Reek sat back on his haunches.  His eyes fixated on the fur carpet beneath Ramsay’s feet.  It looked soft but worn.

Ramsay dropped the whip on the floor and yanked off his boots.  Then he climbed up beside Reek, grabbing his skinny waist and pulling him against him.  They fell onto the bed together, Ramsay’s arm tightening around Reek.  His clothing dug into Reek’s tortured skin like barbs, but Reek knew better than to flinch.

“Reek,” Ramsay whispered in his pet’s ear.

Reek didn’t say anything.

“You’re my dog, right?  You’ll always be mine.”  The second sentence sounded almost like a question, too.

Reek knew the answer.  “Yes, master.”

Ramsay put a hand on Reek’s throat, which was wasted and delicate.  He examined the collar he’d put on his pet, tracing the red leather with his fingers.  Reek had lost weight, and the collar was loose, but he’d been too afraid to unbuckle it, even to make it tighter.

“I want you to love me,” Ramsay told him.  His breath was hot on Reek’s neck.  “That’s what I wanted from my pet.  Is that too much to ask?  For you to understand that?”

“I love you,” Reek responded.  “I’m sorry; I’m stupid...for not realizing.”  He didn’t think Ramsay knew what love was; for Ramsay, love meant ownership.  He loved that Reek had to come obediently to him, over and over, ready for more pain.

It had been an automatic response, something said to avoid more punishment.  But it was true.  His chest ached, a crushing mix of agony and adoration.  He’d felt the same way about his father, and his brothers.  He’d felt the same way about the Starks.  But never as strongly as this.

This felt like every hurt he’d ever suffered, stuffed into his heart until he wanted to tear it out.  It was also a tightness, a longing, for the affection Ramsay showed him, for the bits of praise.  It was the relief he felt, when Ramsay came to get him, after he’d spent so long in the dark.

It was what love had always felt like for Theon, except magnified one hundred fold.  Love for Theon had always been built on fear, except what he’d felt for Robb.  But Theon hadn’t understood that kind of love when he’d felt it.  When he had had it.

Ramsay clutched his throat tighter, an iron grip that made it difficult to breathe.  “Do you really?”

“Yes, I love you,” Reek repeated, desperate and truthful.  Reek also wanted Ramsay to die, but he’d often wanted his father to die, too.

Ramsay slid his fingers down Reek’s chest, releasing his neck.  “You’re smelly.  Pathetic.  Disobedient.  Do you think I love a creature like you back?”

“…I wouldn’t deserve it.”  Reek had played Ramsay’s games long enough to know the right answer.

Pulling Reek closer, until his wounds burned against Ramsay’s chest, Ramsay whispered: “No, you wouldn’t.”

Ramsay leaned in, breathing in Reek’s smell, a mixture of sweat, blood, and weeks of dirt and filth.  “But I _do_ love you.”

Reek hadn’t been expecting that answer, and he opened his mouth, stuttering.  _Oh gods,_ he thought, _what do I say to that that will make him happy?_

“I love you,” Ramsay went on, thankfully oblivious, “because you’ve tricked me somehow.  Because you’re a little sneak.  You tricked me just like you tricked the Starks.  I bet one day you’ll betray me, just like you betrayed them.”

“No,” Reek blurted, heart pounding.  “No, never.  I would never, I promise.”  _This will lead to more pain, if I’m not careful._

“I bet you told them the same thing.”  Ramsay dug his nails into Reek’s stomach.  “I bet you told Robb you loved him too.”

Reek shuddered.  His chest heaved, and he forced himself to stare at the wall again, to examine the stone.  “…I love only you.”  So far, Ramsay’s word games had lost him two toes and several pounds of weight.

Ramsay moved his hand further down, and began to finger the scars he had left in place of Theon’s manhood.  “Liar.  You already tried to run away.”

Swallowing, Reek’s palms grew sweaty as he clutched at the blankets.  Ramsay’s touch was as painful as the wounds on his back.  “It was before I knew my place.  Before I knew my name.  I promise, my lord.  I promise, I won’t betray you.  I won’t run away again.”

“Say it again.”  There it was again, that needy voice.

“I won’t run away again.”  Reek considered.  “Now I know I belong to you.”  _I know what happens if I try._

Ramsay didn’t say anything for what seemed an eternity.  Instead he clutched Reek to his chest like the other man might disappear at any moment.  Reek waited, trying not to tense up, trying not to make a wrong move.

“I hope you understand why I have to beat you,” Ramsay whispered, finally.  “You were raised a lordling.  I know you’ll forget you belong to me, if I let you get away with your mistakes.  You’ll go back to being a betrayer.”

Nodding, Reek remembered to breathe.  “Yes, I know I deserve it.  I just want to be your Reek.”  _I can’t take any more of this,_ he thought.  _Please stop talking, and just take me._ When Ramsay had first started to bring him into bed, he never would have believed he’d wish for it over Ramsay’s words.  But he knew now that words were dangerous.  “It…it helps me remember what I am.”

“What are you?”

“…Yours.”

Behind him, Ramsay let out a satisfied sigh.  “You’re the best thing I’ve ever made.  You’re my favorite dog.”

“Thank you, my Lord.”  Reek hoped that was the right answer.  It seemed to be, because Ramsay leaned his head on the back of Reek’s shoulder.  His lord’s breath came out soft and calm.  Then, his grip loosened, his head dropped, and Reek knew he was asleep.


End file.
